A Research On The Development Of Students’Universal Abilities In Senior High School English Teaching

This thesis mainly deals with how to develop students’universal abilities in senior high school English teaching, which refers to the abilities which can be applied and transferred universally, including cognitive abilities such as observation, association, comparison, induction, criticism, innovation, judgment, inference, generalization, abstraction, operational abilities like discovering, raising, describing and analyzing problems, thinking hard and well, and sociability like expression, intercourse, communication, organization, publicity, cohesion, social activity and so on.The current situation of the development of universal abilities is investigated and analyzed in this article. The different ways of developing students’universal abilities are also elaborated.It first relates to the importance of the development of students’ universal abilities. In traditional English teaching, people paid too much attention to knowledge teaching and neglected ability development. In the contemporary society of fierce competition, owning universal abilities which can be transferred is more important than getting a lot of "dead knowledge."Second, the evidence of its importance has been provided by Formal Discipline Theory in the history of western education and its development is also the requirement of the Curriculum Scheme for the Senior High School (experimental manuscript).Third, four surveys on teachers, students, parents and educational administrative staff have been carried out to find out the present situation of the development of universal abilities. In these surveys, it is found out that most of these people support its development and some of the teachers have made some attempts to carry it out in their classroom teaching, but haven’t formed a systematic theory and done it as a daily routine. The information from actual classroom teaching of six English teachers of different years of teaching experiences is agreement with the result of the survey made above. Therefore, a set of systematic approaches implementation must be created to meet the requirements of classroom English teaching.Fourth, the development of universal abilities is implemented in different stages of an English lesson and all aspects of English teaching, including English knowledge teaching, English skills development and English exercises practice. The idea of the development of universal abilities should penetrate every stage of a lesson including preparations before teaching, implementation while teaching and reflection after teaching. In English knowledge teaching, students’universal abilities can be developed in pronunciation teaching by working out the phonetic rules underlying the words by themselves, in grammar teaching by concluding grammar rules from example sentences or thinking about special language phenomena, and in vocabulary teaching by discovering the law of word formation.In English skills training, students’universal abilities like prediction, judgment and stenography can be developed in listening teaching; the abilities of expression, association and communication can be improved in speaking teaching through all kinds of classroom speaking activities like drills, discussions, debates, speeches and free talks; the abilities of acquiring and processing information, judgment, inference, conclusion, and creative thinking abilities can be fostered in reading teaching by designing inventive reading questions and activities; students’thinking abilities of strictness, logicality and coherence and abilities of doing things like writing a notice, letter can be cultivated in writing teaching.Students’universal abilities can also be developed in different sections of the textbooks of Advance with English, including Welcome to the unit where students’universal abilities like association, imagination and divergent thinking can be improved, Task in which students’universal abilities like acquiring information, cooperation, communication, oral expression and interpersonal coordination are developed, and Project which aims to improve students’ ability of doing things in English and meanwhile develop their universal abilities of cooperation, communication and expression while doing their projects.Doing English exercises is also a good way to develop students’ universal abilities like analyzing and solving problems, logic thinking ability, abilities of judgment and inference in multiple choices, abilities like logic reasoning, analysis, judgment in cloze tests, abilities like finding information, expressing and processing information and summarizing information in information extracting and reading skills and expression ability in question answering.Fifth, four modes have been established. The first two modes indicate the process of the development of students’universal abilities while acquiring English knowledge and improving English skills. The next two ones show the relationship between teachers and students in classroom teaching. The cooperation mode between teachers and students and the student-centered mode are suitable to develop students’universal abilities.Sixth, four guaranteeing measures are made, including adequate time, questions or problems guiding, student autonomy and innovation to ensure their implementation and that they are easy to carry out.Finally, a conclusion is made that the development of student’s universal abilities under the background of senior English education is feasible and necessary with the help of the analyses and examples showed above of the ways to develop universal abilities in different teaching stages, the models and principles. Some problems which still exist are also put forward including the pressures from college entrance examinations, heavy teaching burden, school administration and parents’ improper expectation and three suggestions have been made at the end of the paper, including changing ideology, reforming evaluation and examination system, adjusting the arrangement of textbooks.